Light, bright, spacious bathroom and suite reveal in a Western Massachusetts historic home. Located right by the five colleges! Design and Remodeled by This Giant Life.
Read MoreI snapped pictures of our daughters room right before packing it up for the move but just haven’t had the chance to reveal the photos. So without further ado we finally have the small toddler room reveal!
Read MoreOver the last 7 weeks we have dealt with a lot of late nights and nap time projects while designing and constructing this natural & soothing boy's nursery. Honestly though, we are so grateful it’s done and that the One Room Challenge helped us complete the nursery before the baby arrives. It very well will be the only room in this Colonial we will complete for a long while, so we made it count!
This post may contain affiliate links.When you click on a link and purchase I will get a small compensation at no extra cost to you, win win. Read the full disclosure here.
We knew this would be the nursery right away, with its little nook area and original closet/ doors, it already had the character and room we wanted.
Shelving wasn’t hard to think up for this spot since we still have wood that was milled from a beech tree at our old house. With some very inexpensive hardware and hunter-green paint, we wrapped up the nook shelving on no time.
It only took half a second for me to realize the wallpaper was not going to work, with the windows facing south this room gets a fair amount of light that only further excentuated the extreme yellow. So we took it down in favor of a painted design and opted out of more wallpaper which would have been costly; and I couldn’t bare to put any up after painstakingly taking so much down.
Using green as our accent was an easy decision after we found this geometric baby blanket at a local store. The blanket really kicked off the entire rooms design but it was just one amazing piece we found from local or small makers for this room.
The crib was reused from our daughters nursery to save funds for other splurges, and because I’m not sure I could find another crib we love as much as this one. When we got it in 2015 (it’s discontinued) we wanted something gender neutral so that it could be reused.
We painted this vintage mid-century dresser to use as our changing table and added long leather pulls for a natural element.
The leather strapped shelf above the changing table was hung extra high (hey were super tall folks) so no head bashing would occur in the middle of the night. And that left ample room for the night light sconce we made to hang on the wall.
One thing we worried about was that the room would get too busy with all the things needed for a baby. So we kept the art minimal but meaningful.
I commissioned an Etsy artist (shop here) to create a print of our 67’ Chevy Bel Air Wagon as a mini-surprise for Mitch, but our daughter is the one that fell in love stating that was her vroom vroom!
We made the art impactful without breaking the bank by only picking items that had a link to us in some way.
I started by narrowing down some fantasy novel quotes I really like and saw before we even knew we were pregnant, some beautiful horse prints to go with the wild and free sign, and a couple of forest prints that sparked joy.
Once I had 6-8 good options I sent them to Mitch for final selection so that they would mean something to him as well. Like the Lord of the Rings quote, (he could care less about anything fantasy related) but picked this quote because he felt it was truly something he wanted his little boy to know and had meaning in the real world.
The rocking chair was another item we reused from our daughters nursery. Having searched to find something both unobtrusive and comfortable for our tall frames, we weren’t ready to give this up. The side table is actually a stool we painted black so it would work with the reading wall sconce.
Lighting was something we really needed to debate for the space, because it didn’t have any overhead lights and we didn’t want to spend more for our electrician just after fixing a bunch of code issues just last month.
So we created a lighting plan that addressed all the areas we would be using. The changing table, a general overhead light and the rocking chair/ reading area.
Overall we couldn’t be happier to start spending some major time in this space with our little boy!
Catch up on all the posts here:
The Design | Custom Artwork | Mid-Mod Dresser with Leather Pulls |
Updates | Nursery Closet | XOXO Feature Wall
Crib (Similar) | Crib Pillow | Knot Pillow | Mobile (2) | Geometric Blanket | Rocking Chair | Side Table (similar) | Leather Pouf | Chair Pillow | Seagrass Basket | Lake Print | Horse Print | Brass Frame | Wild & Free Sign | Shelf Baskets | Brass Giraffes | Wood Picture Frame | Quote Art | Brass Clock | Reading Wall Sconce | DIY Pulley Light | Felt Baskets | Wire Hamper | Changing Pad | Triangle Shelf
Hopefully everyone who needed the extra time because of these crazy natural disasters has been able to finish up, it was so nice of Linda our host to extend the One Room Challenge for everyone.
Let's go check out all of the other
One Room Challenge reveal's shall we?
Its time for this bungalow entry to finally be revealed! We would also to thank this amazing community of bloggers and readers whom have made
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This dining room refresh has been in the making for a few years (to say the least).
If you read our post with the dining room before photos, you're aware we had a phase even before this dining room refresh.
The house has been in constant renovation status for the last 6 years and we have been working hard in 2016 to #finishthatspace.
That being said, nothing ever seems fully complete, but projects we have been wishing and dreaming about, or desperately needed to complete, have been.
We have always tried to think about the timeframe in which our home was built when making design decisions. Sadly for too long we believed this home was originally built in the late 1800's and was just a cabin/cottage originally. In Mid- 2015 on our fifth Anniversary we went on a deep hunt for more information and stumbled upon the truth.
We have one of the first pre-fabricated (brought in from the train station with horse & buggy) bungalow catalog homes in Hadley, Ma. Listed as a MA Historic Commission home; named the Benjamin Denio Home.
Our craftsman window and door casings were always something we believed had been added to the home in the 20's. It didn't have enough of a traditional bungalow look (enclosed porches added in the 50's, and no front entry to speak of).
Needless to say, when taking down the wall between the enclosed porch and dining room, we made sure the opening mimicked the current 9' opening in the household.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read the full disclosure here.
You can read the full tutorial on our DIY sputnik light here.
I really wanted a light fixture that would really brighten up this space and provide adequate light when working on projects. We hit the jack pot with this fixture and made it at a price we could afford, the fact that Haverly calls it "bubble light" is just icing on the cake.
Its no surprise to our neighbors that we like blues, teals, and greens. The exterior of our house with its bright paint job and almost matching 67' Chevy Bel Air Station Wagon have explained who we are and where we live too many times to count.
"O yeah your the one's with the teal house... your kinda obsessed with that color huh?"
Or " Yes! You have a matching house and car, with like 5 dogs right?"
Haha, yep thats us. Sadly, minus 2 dogs in the last 6 months....
We decided our artwork would need to be a giraffe print somewhere along the line, apropos of who we are as giants. When we saw this teal giraffe print it was a given! What a great way to brighten the space, in our opinion.
When discussing our designs and subsequent purchases we tend to lean towards making sure things are made ethically. By no means are we perfect and only purchase ethically made items, but it is a large factor in whether or not we purchase something.
Putting our money where it counts by sourcing local, small business, USA made, and/or ethically produced products just seems like the right thing to do in our current economy. If that means that we just can't have everything we ever dreamed of, well we have a feeling we will live, and live a more fulfilling life.
In the case of the dining room this meant DIY-ing a light fixture we could afford because the only ones we found were out of our price point. Ordering the print through Etsy.com and re-using so many vintage finds or heirlooms. It makes us feel great to know the history behind our finds.
I originally picked out this bowl on Etsy because it is so gosh darn cute, but then remembered I had hidden this crystal bowl safely away a few years back. The marble is from a local reclaimed building materials yard and is perfect for serving drinks on top of.
I have an obsession with these antique blue jars my sister used for her wedding center pieces (its a good thing she let me steal hoard like all of them after her big day).
It feels very nice to finally have this room back in order. Of course it will only be a hot second till Mitch, the toddler, or one of the dogs makes a mess of things. Thats just life in a small crazy household.
That white blob on the wall is actually our door bell. When our electrician asked where I wanted it and told me he couldn't get it into the entryway for various reasons. I told him right above the baseboard, he looked at me like I had three heads.
At the end of the day he comes back to me and says "okay it's all finished and I'm never installing another one of those suckers up near the ceiling ever again! It's genius!"
I of course didn't think it was genius at all, just made sense. Why have that ugly thing up high on the wall it doesn't really make it louder?"
The really hard part about having an open concept household is that you can see all the unfinished spaces. So until all the big stuff is done (like closet doors in the entryway), most of the rooms still feel unfinished. Thats why the big push to get a bunch of projects done in 2017, so we can move on with new adventures.
What do you think of the refresh?
Follow along with our Giant adventures as we fix up this 1847 Historic Colonial in Western Massachusetts.
P.S. Expect lots of wallpaper removal and don’t say we didn’t warn you!
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